You swoop over the countryside like a bird in flight, the buildings and fields passing in a blur as you flick back in time between one month and the next.
But this isn't just another upgrade to Google Earth. You created this yourself just 30 minutes ago using a small, cheap drone that took a series of simple photos while airborne. This is the idea behind Pix4D, a new spin-off from EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is stitching together thousands of 2D photos to create complex 3D models that are navigable over time.
The process starts by flying a simple aerial drone over the area that is to be mapped, taking hundreds of photos as it passes. The GPS location for each photo is stored, as is the angle at which it was taken. An algorithm then detects points of interest - such as areas of high contrast between pixels - in each photo and uses these to stitch the photos into a single image, much as you'd piece together a jigsaw.
This is all created in the cloud, too: presumably to spare anyone who buys the finished product from having to deal with all of the heavy processing that's required.
One Per Cent: Drone's 2D photos converted to make 3D models
YouTube - ‪Turn 2D photos into 3D models‬‏
http://pix4d.com/
-RODION